Supreme Court of India

Supreme Court of India

Since the birth of the Republic of India on 26 January 1950, 45 people have served as the Chief Justice of India (CJI).

 While H. J. Kania is the inaugural CJI, the current incumbent is Dipak Misra who was appointed as Chief Justice of India on 28 August 2017.

Justice Y. V. Chandrachud is the longest serving Chief Justice (February 1978 - July 1985).

Number	Name	Period of office		Length of term (days)	Bar	Appointed by
1	H. J. Kania	26 January 1950	6 November 1951‡‡	649	Bombay High Court	Rajendra Prasad
2	M. Patanjali Sastri	7 November 1951	3 January 1954	788	Madras High Court
3	Mehr Chand Mahajan	4 January 1954	22 December 1954	352	Punjab and Haryana High Court
4	Bijan Kumar Mukherjea	23 December 1954	31 January 1956‡	404	Calcutta High Court
5	Sudhi Ranjan Das	1 February 1956	30 September 1959	1337	Calcutta High Court
6	Bhuvaneshwar Prasad Sinha	1 October 1959	31 January 1964	1583	Patna High Court
7	P. B. Gajendragadkar	1 February 1964	15 March 1966	773	Bombay High Court	Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
8	Amal Kumar Sarkar	16 March 1966	29 June 1966	105	Calcutta High Court
9	Koka Subba Rao	30 June 1966	11 April 1967‡	285	Madras High Court
10	Kailas Nath Wanchoo	12 April 1967	24 February 1968	318	Allahabad High Court
11	Mohammad Hidayatullah[2]	25 February 1968	16 December 1970	1025	Bombay High Court	Zakir Hussain
12	Jayantilal Chhotalal Shah	17 December 1970	21 January 1971	35	Bombay High Court	Varahagiri Venkata Giri
13	Sarv Mittra Sikri	22 January 1971	25 April 1973	824	Lahore High Court
14	Ajit Nath Ray	26 April 1973	27 January 1977	1372	Calcutta High Court
15	Mirza Hameedullah Beg	28 January 1977	21 February 1978	389	Allahabad High Court	Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
16	Yeshwant Vishnu Chandrachud	22 February 1978	11 July 1985	2696	Bombay High Court	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
17	Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati	12 July 1985	20 December 1986	526	Gujarat High Court	Gyani Zail Singh
18	Raghunandan Swarup Pathak	21 December 1986	18 June 1989‡	940	Allahabad High Court
19	Engalaguppe Seetharamiah Venkataramiah	19 June 1989	17 December 1989	181	Karnataka High Court	Ramaswamy Venkataraman
20	Sabyasachi Mukharji	18 December 1989	25 September 1990‡‡	281	Calcutta High Court
21	Ranganath Misra	26 September 1990	24 November 1991	424	Odisha High Court
22	Kamal Narain Singh	25 November 1991	12 December 1991	17	Allahabad High Court
23	Madhukar Hiralal Kania	13 December 1991	17 November 1992	340	Bombay High Court
24	Lalit Mohan Sharma	18 November 1992	11 February 1993	85	Patna High Court	Shankar Dayal Sharma
25	Manepalli Narayana Rao Venkatachaliah	12 February 1993	24 October 1994	619	Karnataka High Court
26	Aziz Mushabber Ahmadi	25 October 1994	24 March 1997	881	Gujarat High Court
27	Jagdish Sharan Verma	25 March 1997	17 January 1998	298	Madhya Pradesh High Court
28	Madan Mohan Punchhi	18 January 1998	9 October 1998	264	Punjab and Haryana High Court	Kocheril Raman Narayanan
29	Adarsh Sein Anand	10 October 1998	31 October 2001	1,117	Jammu and Kashmir High Court
30	Sam Piroj Bharucha	1 November 2001	5 May 2002	185	Bombay High Court
31	Bhupinder Nath Kirpal	6 May 2002	7 November 2002	185	Delhi High Court
32	Gopal Ballav Pattanaik	8 November 2002	18 December 2002	40	Odisha High Court	A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
33	V. N. Khare	19 December 2002	1 May 2004	499	Allahabad High Court
34	S. Rajendra Babu	2 May 2004	31 May 2004	29	Karnataka High Court
35	Ramesh Chandra Lahoti	1 June 2004	31 October 2005	517	Madhya Pradesh High Court
36	Yogesh Kumar Sabharwal	1 November 2005	13 January 2007	438	Delhi High Court
37	K. G. Balakrishnan	14 January 2007	12 May 2010	1,214	Kerala High Court
38	S. H. Kapadia	12 May 2010	28 September 2012	870	Bombay High Court	Pratibha Patil
39	Altamas Kabir	29 September 2012	18 July 2013	292	Calcutta High Court	Pranab Mukherjee
40	P. Sathasivam	19 July 2013	26 April 2014	281	Madras High Court
41	Rajendra Mal Lodha	27 April 2014	27 September 2014	153	Rajasthan High Court
42	H. L. Dattu	28 September 2014	2 December 2015	430	Karnataka High Court
43	T. S. Thakur	3 December 2015	3 January 2017	397	Jammu and Kashmir High Court
44	Jagdish Singh Khehar	4 January 2017	27 August 2017	236	Punjab and Haryana High Court
45	Dipak Misra	28 August 2017	Incumbent	0	Odisha High Court	Ram Nath Kovind